Not Forgotten
by ErisandDysnomia
Summary: "Soul slumped down then, against the wall of the apartment across the hall. He dropped his head into his hands, and let out a shuddering breath, one that tasted like mud, sand and Maka, before gripping his hands in his hair, and letting the pain he'd spent the half hour ride home ignoring flood his senses again. " Sequel to Gone. Angsty Fluff!


**Not Forgotten**

* * *

_How I wish you could see the potential_

_The potential of you and me_

_It's a book elegantly bound but_

_In a language you can't read_

_Just yet_

* * *

In the first empty months without the constant shadow of his Meister, Soul realizes exactly what kind of people his friends are.

Against his wishes, Lord Death demands a search party go out for her, after all, she is still an employee of Shibusen, and she didn't show up for work. The police got involved as well, spending a sickening amount of time interviewing him. He handles them with barely contained derision, while he answered every question they ask him, and let them see the note she left.

He understood that they were only doing their job, but it still completely irked him that they believed he had anything to do with her disappearance. Well, had anything malicious to do with her disappearance, he didn't deny that he'd hadn't been able to keep her, but he hadn't insured her disappearance either.

The police do finally clear him of any guilt, but they make no progress in trying to find her. In fact, the more they look, the better Maka seems to be able to cover her tracks. Soul's not convinced that she's alone then. He's almost completely sure he found the elusive female figure that hadn't been around for her. Maka was serious; she had absolutely no desire to be found.

Soul didn't try looking, she'd only asked one thing from him, and he refused to break the last strand of trust between the two of them.

When he'd come back from the lake, Blair had been waiting outside of their door, her ears flattened against her head, nose drawn up. Her eyes were immediately hard when she asked why he smelled like sex, and why he rolling in so early. Apparently, she'd picked up some idea that he and Maka had gotten into a fight, because when she'd come in that morning, Maka's room was a mess, and her clothes dug through. Without sign of her pigtailed owner, and Scythe-Boy coming in as early as he did, smelling like sex, and guilt etched into his face, she'd immediately turn on him, hissing out her hatred of what he'd done.

Soul had only stood there and let Blair scream her abuse at him, excited that someone finally was. She ripped into him, hard, screaming about how Maka had trusted him, and how he'd obviously let her down. What kind of man was he anyways, one fight and he runs off to the nearest whore for comfort, after knowing what that would do to Maka? _How could he let her down like that?!_

Blair stopped when she noticed that his shoulders were trembling, when his eyes were veiled beneath his fringe of white hair, and when she saw the small droplet fall from his face. Blair stopped her screaming, and swallowed the fear that the Scythe's reaction sent through her bones. She softly spoke his name, and he flinched. He hadn't heard his name aloud since his Meister-former Meister-had moaned it underneath him, in his last attempt to make her stay. Slowly, Soul lifted his head and Blair's anger caught in her throat with the same consistency of a fur ball. He had bags under his eyes, and the red irises were hidden by a wall of water. She didn't want to move, didn't even want to breathe before he spoke, his voice as raw as his sand scraped palms.

'_She's gone Blair. I couldn't-I wasn't enough. She left.'_

Soul slumped down then, against the wall of the apartment across the hall. He dropped his head into his hands, and let out a shuddering breath, one that tasted like mud, sand and Maka, before gripping his hands in his hair, and letting the pain he'd spent the half hour ride home ignoring flood his senses again. He tried to reach out to Maka's soul for comfort, but was met with nothing but emptiness.

She was gone.

Blair had returned herself into a cat, and she wormed her way into Soul's lap. She lay across his chest, and bushed her head against his chin, her own amber eyes sad and broken. Blair tried to encourage him, tried to make him remember that she was like this sometimes, that she was going to come back. Soul sniffed and only shook his head.

'_Not this time Blair. Not this time'_

* * *

He goes to Spirit first.

Soul wished to God that someone else could have done this. But Maka was-had been- his Meister, and his girlfriend, and he knew he would have to be the one to tell Spirit.

However, when he does finally corner the current Death Scythe on the balcony as Shibusen, the man his surprisingly quiet. Too quiet. It's because of this abnormal silence that Soul insisted on filling the noiseless air with excuses.

'_I'm sorry. It was me, I-she-it scared her, I guess, and she felt like she needed to get away. I'm sorry, I'm sorry I wasn't enough to keep her, I wasn't enough-'_

The older Scythe only holds up his hand to stop Soul's blabbing. The younger Weapon only closes his eyes, waiting to be struck, or ripped into, or something equally awful. Instead, the hand only lands on his shoulder and Spirit's eyes only serve to make him feel worse. They're broken, but they aren't seething in anger. Instead, they're drenched in acquiescence.

Spirit told him that before they'd divorced, Maka's mother had told him that she'd hoped Maka grew up nothing like him. And, for the most part Maka hadn't. She was her mother in every sense. She was a brilliant Meister, she was a genius, and she even looked like her mother. But, Spirit had sighed, she was too much like her mother. Too far into her own head, to insecure to realize what she'd had when she had it, and too broken to believe she deserved it. Maka didn't grow up anything like him, and that was what her biggest problem was. She'd taken on her mother, body, mind and soul, and had taken her demons with her. Spirit grabbed Soul's shoulders, and told him that he'd done what he could for Maka, and then _thanks_ him for taking care of her so well.

It's the gratitude that Soul couldn't handle. Maka had left because of him, had left because he couldn't prove that he loved her enough. Maka left because Soul hadn't been good enough, and he just wanted someone to say it, someone to confirm the sickening thought that was echoing through his head.

'_I don't…I don't have a Meister.'_ Soul had managed between clenched teeth and self-loathing. Spirit had only sighed, and decided that they'd just start his Death Scythe training early. He'd just need to show up at Shibusen, and Lord Death, Spirit and Stein would find a way to lock up the Black Blood, and get him started as Spirit's replacement.

Soul offered his gracious thanks for their consideration of him, but inside, he'd only felt sick. He didn't want a new Meister, didn't want to have to be experimented on, didn't…didn't know what to do without her. He didn't want to be without her.

And the longer the emptiness echoed in his head, the more he realized he was going to have to.

* * *

His friends ranged from intense anger, to complete shell shock.

Tsubaki was one of the outliers; the anger that had shown on the usually pacified Weapon's face had given Soul a small feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Black*Star had gone completely silent when he'd heard the news of his childhood friend, the confusion on his face echoed the feelings of the rest of the group. Black*Star had sunk into their couch, which Soul had refused to sit on since getting back, and just stared ahead. She swore she wouldn't become her mother, he'd muttered to himself, to anyone who happened to be listening. She had promised him she wouldn't become her mother.

Liz and Patti hadn't really known what to do, so Liz had just gotten him a new CD, because all she and Soul were fluent in was music, and with that CD, she'd offered the complete support of her and her sister, in whatever he needed. Patti had shyly passed him a picture of a giraffe, the most somber look on the young girl's face. Soul had actually cracked a smile over it, and it had ended up taped onto his fridge, the only splash of color on the white machine, after taking down all of the pictures of him and Maka.

Kidd had asked what Soul needed, and the Death Scythe hadn't had had an answer. What he needed was his Meister, what he needed was Maka, what he needed was at least a better explanation. That note she'd written, she'd written long before she ever asked him to go to the lake. Maka had however long to write the fucking thing and that was all she had given him. Soul had only shook his head, and asked Kidd if he could advise his dad not to look for Maka. It was a waste of manpower.

'_Come on dude, it's Maka. If she doesn't want to be found, none of us will find her.'_

None of them.

* * *

When he wakes up after a year of solitude, he's surprised at how much it still hurts.

He thought he'd be okay. Things had stabilized; he spent most of his days with Stein, both of them trying their best to stabilize the Black Blood, using a mixture of mediation and drugs. It fucked with Soul's head like a mother fucker at night, when he tried to sleep, and the barrier broke down, and the insanity flooded him at once, but during the day, it was completely contained, and he'd even had a few runs with Lord Death, without major incident.

He hears Blair humming as she gets ready for work. Without Maka's income, Blair had taken it upon herself to get a second job, to help Soul out. He appreciated it, but wondered if the second job really came from her desire to help, or if it has something to do with the ridiculously short skirt that was standard at Death Bucks.

She was out of the house within twenty minutes, and Soul forced himself to get up, and get in the shower. He had to get to Shibusen, had to sit through his daily session with Stein, and had to shadow Spirit, while he and Marie taught Soul the ins and outs of what being a Death Scythe actually entailed. While he stands under the stream of hot water, he questions himself again.

Why was he bothering with this?

Stepping out of the shower, he walks into the kitchen, towel drying his hair, clad in only his boxers. Blair left him some food on the stove, and he wonders when he became so fucked up, that the Sexy Kitty he tried to kill when he was 13 ends up being his caregiver.

His phone is blinking, so he pressed the answering machine, and listens as the same hesitant voice he'd expected it to be fills his kitchen.

It's that girl, the one that used to stare at him and Maka. Her name escapes him, as it usually does, and he wonders why he bothers with her. Her message is the same as always, she's asking him to consider partnering up with him. He doesn't want a partner, and he's a Death Scythe, so he doesn't need one. But that doesn't stop them from asking.

A lot of them have, his eyes are just a little too hard, his teeth too sharp, and his glare too unfriendly for them to really want to deal with him every day.

He's become who he was when he was a child, and he's aggravated by how easily he's reverted back into anger.

* * *

He passes out at work that day.

Stein had decided that he wanted to try a new mixture of drugs, to pull off more control, for longer. Soul takes the pills he's offered, willing to try anything to get the nightmares to stop. The pills, instead, completely fuck up his ability to control his own wavelength, making it impossible to resonate with anyone. He loses control to the point where his wavelength moves in on itself, knocking him out completely.

He wakes up after midnight in the infirmary. Stein looking even slightly apologetic as Soul sits up, trying to realize exactly what happened. He waves off the Mad Scientist's apologies, and just stands up to get his jacket, shrugging it back on as he walks out of Shibusen. He just wants to go home, to eat his weight in food, get shit faced, and pass out in his overused chair.

When he walks into his apartment, Blair is already gone, and he's glad. He doesn't want to deal with her asking where he was, and if he was okay, and treating him delicately because today just so happens to be the anniversary, he just wants to be left alone.

Soul throws his keys on the counter in the kitchen, and tosses his jacket on the couch. The red light on his phone is blinking again, so he presses play while he opens the fridge, reaching for the box of take out and a beer, while the girl's voice filled his kitchen again.

"She always calls six times a day?"

His blood turns to ice, his organs shut down, and he swallows bile.

_No. There's no way. There's just no fucking way._

He walks out of the kitchen, and sure enough, sitting on their couch like she hadn't been gone more than a day, Maka's emerald eyes are on his, her knees drawn to her chest. Her hair's gotten longer, and it cascades down her back, too long now for her pigtails. Her longs legs are still perfect, visible by the shorts she wears.

She looks tan, she looks older, she looks different.

She breaks his heart all over again.

He tries to speak, but he can't remember how. He can't remember how to do anything other than stare at his former Meister, unsure of how to be near her without their souls connected.

He doesn't remember how to not be alone anymore.

Maka, for her part, looks embarrassed. "I didn't mean to just walk in. I just…my key still worked. So I came in."

"How long have you been here?" His voice is finally working again, and that's the only thing he can get out of his mouth, everything he wants to say is trapped behind the sheer disbelief at the girl who is in his apartment again. The girl who is suddenly returned in his life, sitting on her couch like she still lived there.

"Since ten this morning. When I sensed Blair coming, I left until she was gone. I wasn't ready to deal with her." She answered, her voice completely detached, like she's talking about the groceries, or anything else completely redundant, or boring.

There are a million different things he wants to say to her, some of it would fall under elation, about how happy he was to know she was okay, that she wasn't dead, because there were nights when the only thing the Black Blood would paint across his head was images of Maka dead in a ditch, or in some cocaine den, or working some god-awful street corner.

Then there was the anger, the hot, sticky,_ violent_ anger that made him want to slam his fist into the wall until his fingers were broken, and red splattered the wall, and he had to go to the hospital, giving him an excuse to leave his home, to leave her here, and pretend he didn't see her.

She wasn't in his head, but that didn't change that fact that Maka was Maka, and she knew him better than anyone else. "Soul-"

"What the _fuck_ Maka?!" His voice erupts with anger he's inhibited since she'd left him alone at that lake. "What the fuck are you doing here!? You think you can do what you did to me and then just walk right back into my life like nothing happened!?" Soul screamed, his equanimity breaking immediately, everything flowing from where he'd locked it up. Maka looked scared by the pure anger in his voice, and he thinks that she should be.

She broke him, a thousand times over.

"You can't just come back, you can't just sit on that couch like you haven't been gone a day!"

"Soul-"

"Shut the fuck up and listen to me this time!" He snarled at her, and she flinched. "You left! You left, without a word! _You left me alone in the sand like I was nothing more than a broken shell you found!_ So why the fuck would you come back?! What changed in your fucking world that sent you back here?! Did you wake up one day and decide that I deserved more than one hundred and ten fucking words as a goodbye!? I love you Maka, and you left me with only one hundred and ten words that explained _nothing to me_. You left, you just fucking left me!

"And while we're on the subject, why did you leave!? If you had needed space, why didn't you just say something, why didn't you just take a vacation or something?! God fucking damn it, Maka! You've never been the type to run when you're scared, you overcome, you move on! You don't just give into the fear!

"And why fear me!? What the fuck did I do to scare you!? Do you realize you punished me for _loving_ you!?" Soul laughed, but there was no mirth, no happiness, it was just pain. "You punished me for loving you. Jesus how fucked up is that? What happened!? We were fine for a good year, I mean, it seemed all of the sudden, you woke up and you feared me. You feared me! Maka I was-" He didn't stop, even when he saw her flinch at the use of the past tense. "Your Weapon, I've been willing to lay my life down for yours countless times, and you don't feel comfortable enough with me to tell me _that you were scared!?_ No, instead, you run. You ran! Do you know how many times you've gotten shitfaced and told me how you consider your mother a coward for running, and then you go and do the exact same fucking thing!

"But you know what the worst fucking part of this is? You've been gone for a year, and it took me about that fucking long to realize that _you were gone and you weren't coming back_. But, I can go on for six fucking hours about what you fucking did to me, but I'm not the only one you fucked up Maka. You ripped your father's heart out of his chest, I've never seen Tsubaki look so mad…and Black*Star? He's been your best friend since you were kids, and you just left him! You left your students, and you left your friends. You left us _all_! How did you justify this in your head?!

"The Maka I knew, the Maka I love, she wouldn't have done this even if it was the last possible choice in the world. She's stronger than that, she's always been stronger than that, and she wouldn't have done what you did! So, fuck you!" His voice was ragged, and he clenched the wall next to him until his knuckles turned white, and his vision blurred with anger.

Maka hadn't moved, the color draining from her face, and tears streaming steadily down her face during his entire harangue. Then, she stood up, and walked towards him. He flinched when her hand touched his face, the feeling of her calloused hand on his face bringing back a whole slew of memories he had long since tried to stifle. "Soul," She whispered, her voice strained and broken as she spoke. "Please don't cry Soul." She implores him. His jaw trembled with the effort it took to stay silent, to try to not be affected by the touch of his nightmares, the smell of the woman who had single-handedly ripped him apart.

"Please don't touch me." He ground out through clenched teeth, but Maka didn't budge, didn't pull her eyes from his.

"Soul, I'm sor-"

"_Don't_." He snarled; his voice treacherously low. "Do not apologize like you forgot to go shopping. You left me. 'I'll go where you go' remember? But no. You cut our bond! You left me alone with the Demon! You fucking broke me in ways I didn't think possible." He laughed his broken laugh again, but Maka still hadn't moved, her flowing tears the only proof that she was even still alive. "So please, fucking please at least tell me that you at least found whatever the fuck you were looking for when you ran away."

Maka brought her other hand up to his face, and held him there. He wanted to run, wanted to leave her behind just as she had done to him, but he couldn't. He wasn't as cruel as she was, and he was just masochistic enough to stay. "I did." She answered him, her massive eyes on his.

"Was it worth it?"

"…Yes." Maka answered, her eyes faltering now. "I…I don't regret leaving-" Soul scoffed and tried to pull away, but she wouldn't let him leave her. Fucking hypocrite. "I don't regret leaving, but if I could take back what I did you, I would, a thousand times over. I shouldn't have run from you, not like that. I hurt you, more than anyone else could, because you trusted me more than anyone else. I completely abused you as my Weapon, and for that, I'm sorry."

Soul didn't answer, those garnet eyes just staring at her, obviously still confused as to why she was here. She sighed, and dropped her head, her hands moving from his face to his shoulders. "Why did you come back?"

"I told you, I found what I needed." She answered, refusing to look at him now. "I found my mom, it took some time, but I found her. I told her everything, about you, about home, about dad…about where I was in my life. She listened, and she told me I made the right choice, that nothing good comes from partnering with your Weapon…because Weapons aren't permanent…of anyone I could pick, she said that a Weapon was the worst idea. But, while she was talking, all I could think about was, how out of everyone in my life, you were the only one who was always there. My parents are fleeting, my friends have their own lives, but you were always there.

"I never stopped loving you. I want you to know that, I didn't run because I don't love you. I do, I've never stopped, but that terrified me." She looked up at him, her eyes drenched in pain. "You've been in my head Soul, you know that fear, and you know how it cripples me."

"And since when as fear been enough to take down the great Maka Albarn?"

"Since it came down to me wondering if I was going to be worth it for you in the long run! I didn't want to be your collapse; I didn't want to be the one who fucks us up. I just wanted to know that you needed me as much as I needed you. I didn't want to put myself in a position where I would wake up one day and hate you…I just…I figured if I left while you loved me, it wouldn't hurt as bad.

"But I was wrong. It hurt so much. So much more than I had ever anticipated. I…I didn't realize how much of my soul belonged to you; I didn't truly understand loneliness until you were no longer in my head. My bones ached, and my organs felt _wrong_. Nothing was as it should be, and I knew I had to come back, that I'd found what I was looking for." She laughed this time, except, it was more of a choked sob than a laugh. Her year was obviously not all she'd expected it to be. "I'm a coward, and a runner, and I can't ignore my daddy issues, or my trust problems, or any of those flaws that completely fucked me over in the first place, but…I know they're there, now, I've accepted that fact. And after I did that, I came back.

"When I came back, I was going to call. I was going to stay at a hotel, and I was going to call. But…I had my key, I wanted to know…just to see if it would still work. _And it did_, and after that…I wasn't able to convince myself to leave. Why does my key still work?" Her voice was barely a whimper, her hands fisting the fabric they held.

Soul was silent, trying to remember how to breathe with her this close to him. "Because I'm a masochist, because you're the one person I trusted to never hurt me, and that kind of trust isn't something you throw away. Because, you're you, I know you, and you wouldn't be able to run away from home without coming back once. Because all of your stuff is here, and I have no right to keep it from you." His hands came to life again, and they held her face in his hands. "Because I knew you'd come back."

Maka sobs then, and Soul just closes his eyes, and presses his forehead against hers. He wonders, for a fleeting second, if he's dreaming, if this is just another Black Blood induced nightmare. She releases his shirt, and goes closer, her arms wrapping around his chest, her head buried where it always went, like she'd never left, and Soul just can't anymore. He wraps his arms around her tightly, gripping his hand in her loose hair.

This was in no way fixed, not even slightly, but even without being in her head, Soul knows that she realizes this. And Maka knows she's been given a second chance that, had she been anyone else, wouldn't even be the table. But Soul had been her Weapon, and he knew her heart and soul, and he couldn't let something like that go. Not without thoroughly fighting for her.

* * *

In the silence of his apartment, Maka holds him tighter. She begs him to love her again.

His heart clenches as she asks that of him, his voice buried in her skin. _'I never stopped.'_

* * *

_You gotta spend some time, Love._

_You gotta spend some time with me._

_And I know that you'll find, love_

_I will possess your heart__._

* * *

**I hadn't been planning on writing out a second part, but Awesomeasusual offered me a sequel to her fic, in exchange for Maka coming back. I HELD UP MY END AWESOME!**


End file.
